Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel הרב בן-ציון מאיר חי עוזיאל

A Jerusalemite of many generations: born in 5640 into a family long settled in the city, he was teaching in a yeshiva from the age of twenty. In 5671 he was made hakham bashi of Jaffa, and there he became a friend of the Ashkenazi rabbi of the same city, Rav Kook; that friendship later decided much. He was chief rabbi of Salonika (5681–5683), of Tel Aviv (5683–5699), and from 5699 the Rishon LeZion, the Sephardi chief rabbi; from 5708 of the State of Israel. He died in office in 5713.

How he ruled. The responsa Mishpetei Uziel are famous for almost always looking for how to permit rather than how to forbid—and for doing so without leaving the law, by following it to the end. Of conversion he wrote that one should accept even when we know the person will not keep the commandments, because otherwise his children will be lost altogether. Of women he wrote that the law contains no prohibition on voting and being elected; as for the court, he said, the matter is not prohibition but accepted usage. Both these answers are disputed to this day, and other great rabbis ruled otherwise; they stand here as his word, not as the outcome of the argument.

Whom he lived among. He was against the religious fencing themselves off: one cannot, he wrote, say "we and our house will serve the Lord" and walk away from the rest. He spoke Arabic, called his Arab neighbours to peace, and in the thirties addressed them directly.

Besides the responsa he left Sha'arei Uziel and Hegyonei Uziel—books not about the law but about what it is for.